


Raven's Driving School

by findcomfortinastranger



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy learns a thing, Driving, F/M, Raven has feelings, Teaching, braven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 20:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findcomfortinastranger/pseuds/findcomfortinastranger
Summary: Set right around the beginning of season 3. Arkadia is being built up and Raven's working on the rovers. Someone has to teach Bellamy to drive, so naturally, it's gotta be Raven. Mostly just friendship but definitely some Braven undertones.





	Raven's Driving School

“Raven,” said a gruff voice coming from the garage entrance.  

“Hold on,” said Raven. She slid out from underneath the rover and looked up into Bellamy Blake’s upside-down face. “What do you want?”

“Someone’s in a mood,” he replied, half-smiling. She didn’t smile back.

“Yeah, and I’m going to be in that mood I get all these wires connected,” she said. She slid back under the rover, muttering to herself about gasoline rations. Bellamy tapped on the hood of the rover and Raven sighed in frustration before reappearing. She raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to annoy her any further.

“I want you to teach me how to drive this thing,” he said.

Raven glared at him. “I don’t have time for jokes,” she said. “I’m the only one who drives it—at least I will be, after revoke Jasper’s privileges.”

“I’m serious,” he replied. “And you know that this possessive thing you’ve got going on isn’t going to last. Kane will make you hand it over.”

“Not until I finish the mods,” she retorted.  

 “And when you do that, Kane will take it and put it under strict regulation—important personnel only. But I’m pretty sure I fall under that category.”

She sighed again, the sound low and deep like a protective growl. This rover had been one of three found in Mount Weather’s garage. Kane had already commandeered the first two but Rover One had been behaving badly, so Raven started the arduous task of fixing it with the few spare parts she had on hand. Her mind had starting bubbling up with new ideas to turn the little rover into a fully-operational war machine, but progress had been slow. Still, the more she worked on it, the more attached to it she became. After all, she had precious little in Arkadia that she could truly call her own.

But she also knew that Bellamy was right. She couldn’t keep it to herself forever, and it was about time that Bellamy knew how to drive. Besides, she’d certainly rather teach Bellamy than Jasper, who had stolen Rover Two the other day for kicks and had ended up with the front tires buried in a foot of mud.

She turned over onto her stomach to look at Bellamy’s face the right way around. He had this way of looking at people he wanted his way with, like the pictures of puppies that the Ark children had been shown in primary school.

“You look stupid when you beg,” said Raven, but she smiled a little. “I’ll take you out tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.”

~

‘Don’t be late’ turned out to be only the first thing on Raven’s list of Rover Don’ts.

"Don't floor the gas pedal, and don't drift the steering wheel too hard to one side unless it's sticking. And don't—"

"Raven," said Bellamy with exasperation in his voice. "You've been telling me what not to do for the past ten minutes. How about you start telling me what I _should_ do instead?"

"Fine," said Raven. She got out of the driver's seat and let Bellamy take it. She watched him as he surveyed the machine--both the normal parts and the bells and whistles that Raven had added—and his face changed. He became focused and intense. Probably to counteract his anxiety, Raven thought with a little shake of her head.

“Why are we so close to camp?” he asked. “We’re going to hit someone.”

“You need to practice on even ground,” she said, strapping herself in. “I’m still learning the road system further out and half of it is blocked by fallen trees.”

Bellamy learned the ins and outs of the actual rover without much difficulty. He'd spent enough time around Raven to know the basics. But it was the actual motor function of driving that tripped him up for his first few lessons. Gauging speed, direction, and distance all at the same time was one thing, but doing it in a massive foreign object having never driven anything in his life? That was quite another. His body didn't mesh with the rover like Raven's did. He felt not like he was controlling the rover, but rather like it was controlling him.

One lesson ended with Bellamy ramming into the fence, too close to the electricity for comfort. Another lesson saw him grazing the side door on a tree trunk. Kane came out to watch them occasionally, and Jasper enjoyed calling out taunts to distract Bellamy further.

"I've had enough of this," said Raven after a particularly nasty incident with a wild rabbit. "Screw fallen trees—they’ll probably cause less damage than you will.”

They started down the beginnings of the road that the Arkadians had cleared and zoomed off into the least-wooded area that Raven could find. Bellamy practiced navigating around trees and riding along the narrow paths that the Grounders had made. He was able to focus in the shelter of the trees without concerning himself over what the others might think of him. The worry lines across his forehead relaxed and he drove along at a good, natural pace. Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"The worst is over," she replied. "You might even get us back alive."

"Wouldn't that be something? We survive deep space, Grounders, and Mount Weather, only to die by my attempts at driving."

Raven laughed, and Bellamy laughed, and for a moment everything was alright. Raven forgot about the lack of supplies she was faced with, the constant threat of Grounder attack, the horrors of Mount Weather and the pain growing in her leg. For now, she was just a girl having a drive through the peaceful trees with an attractive boy and a beautiful piece of junk that she was nursing back to health.

She glanced over at Bellamy, at the smile still resting at the corners of his mouth. He was attractive, a fact which she often forgot. She always seemed to be too busy looking at cold statistics and dead machinery to notice warmth and beauty. She glanced up at the scrap-metal raven necklace that she’d hung from the roof of the rover. She missed Finn. She missed Wick. And she knew in that moment, with absolute certainty, that she would miss Bellamy if he ever left. She would miss him more than she could say. And in their world, it was such a real possibility that her chest tightened with anxiety.

Bellamy glanced at her and she looked firmly away, her face a thunderstorm of dark emotion.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," said Raven quickly, trying to shake herself out of it. She was unsuccessful, so she masked it as impatience. "I mean, yes. Don't make the turns so quick. Slow down before you hit them. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that."

"Yes ma'am," said Bellamy with some sarcasm. He glanced over at her again, but if he had a problem with her abrupt shift in mood, he didn't say it.

When they had parked the rover back in the garage, Raven started back to her bunk without saying goodbye. Bellamy caught her arm and she turned around, trying not to seem irritated with him, since it wasn't really him that she was mad at. "I need to get some stuff done before meal time," she said.

"I just wanted to say thanks," he said. "I'm going to feel a lot less useless around here now."

"You could never be useless," she replied, furrowing her brow. "You've proven that. Hell, you’ve proven that a hundred times over.”

"So have you," he said. He paused and considered her, almost like he was looking through her. She figured that he was looking for something amiss, something concrete that he could fix or tell her to suck up.

"We're going to be okay, Raven," he said at last, strength and gentleness mingling in his voice. "Maybe not tomorrow, or the next day. But someday."

"I don't like thinking about someday. I like doing what I can when I can do it," she replied. Her chest was starting to tighten again. All her worries that had disappeared when she was driving with him were coming back.

"Me, too. But we have to be…”

“Patient,” she said with a snort. “At least, that’s what Abby says.”

“Kane, too,” he said. “It’s almost like they’ve been pep talking each other.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” she said, thinking about the rumors she’d heard about the two of them. Everyone saw it, but Abby always denied that anything was going on.

She realized that Bellamy’s hand was still on her arm. It was warm and comforting and for a split second she remembered the time she’d come to him looking for distraction from her pain. He’d provided it in the only way he’d known how and it still hadn’t been enough to put her back together—but he had tried. He always did try his best, just like she did.

Her iciness melted away and she put her hand over his for just a second before using it to pry him off.

“I really do have stuff to finish,” she said with a little smile as she turned her back on him and headed off. “By the way, I expect payment for the driving lesson. It was my turn to man the kitchen clean-up, but now you get to do it.”

“I have training tonight!” he shouted back at her.

“Should have thought of that before you went around asking for favors!”


End file.
